Is Gerry Adams an Irish Nelson Mandela?

Acknowledgments
of culpability from leaders on both sides of the South African conflict to the
vaunted Truth and Reconciliation Commission, were fundamental to helping the
country move beyond its deeply divided past into a more peaceful future.

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A rally demanding the release of Gerry Adams. Demotix/AMMGOfficial. All rights reserved.

The
arrest of Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams early last week came as a surprise to many
people inside and outside of (Northern) Ireland. Adams is accused of having
ordered the ‘disappearance’ of Jean McConville, when he was alleged to have
been the commanding officer of the Belfast Brigade of the Irish Republican
Army, a militant organization affiliated with Sinn Fein. The disappearance of
McConville, a mother of ten, for her alleged, although now disproven, role as a
British informant is one of the most notorious killings of the Troubles, the
euphemistic term for the violent insurgency that gripped Northern Ireland from
1969 until the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 and killed 3531
people.

Although
the McConville killing took place in 1972, Adams’ connection to McConville’s
death has come under renewed scrutiny as a result of allegations made by former
IRA militant Brendan Hughes as part of an oral history project run through
Boston College. When
Hughes died in 2008 the Belfast project released his tapes. The release of
Hughes’ tapes resulted in a prolonged court battle between the organizers of
the Belfast Project and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, ultimately
leading to the seizure of additional interviews from the project,
including that of Dolours Price, who elsewhere had identified
Adams as a key figure in McConville’s murder.

While
Adams has always denied having been a member of the IRA, most analysts agree
that he was heavily involved in planning IRA actions before his political
career in Sinn Fein took off, as indicated by the young Adams’s participation
in ceasefire talks held between the IRA – not Sinn Fein – and then Secretary of
State for Northern Ireland William Whitelaw.

Today,
Adams is mostly celebrated for his prominent role in bringing peace to Northern
Ireland. Indeed, it was under Adams’ guidance that Sinn Fein began to assert
its primacy over the IRA and it is fair to say that, without this shift in
strategy, the Irish Peace Process (as it developed) would have been a practical
impossibility.

As
a result, many supporters of Adams see him as an Irish Nelson Mandela, who
turned his back on violence and enabled a peaceful transition to powersharing
and inclusive democracy. In their eyes, the arrest for a killing in 1972 is all
part of a cynical political plot to destroy Adams’ personal reputation and
undermine Sinn Fein’s rise to political prominence in and throughout the island
of Ireland.

But
this comparison is misplaced. Mandela, the organizer and commander and chief of the
African National Congress’ paramilitary wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, openly
acknowledged his role in orchestrating the group’s campaign of violence against
the repressive apartheid regime. His admissions, and similar acknowledgments of
culpability from leaders on both sides of the South African conflict to the
vaunted Truth and Reconciliation Commission, were fundamental to helping the
country move beyond its deeply divided past into a more promising, prosperous,
and peaceful future.

Although
Northern Ireland has never had a TRC of its own, with guarantees of general
amnesty for participants, many prominent figures in the conflict have
nevertheless come clean about their past activities.

Famously,
Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin McGuinness admitted to the Saville Inquiry that
he was the second in command of the Derry IRA in the early 1970s, although he,
too, has gone on to deny any subsequent involvement with the group. Anthony
McIntyre, one of the principal investigators for the Boston College project and
a sharp critic of both Adams and McGuinness, has been even more frank in
admitting his membership and involvement in the IRA, and other prominent former
republicans have done likewise. Adams, in contrast, has maintained the façade
that he was never directly involved with the IRA.

But
worse than not coming clean, Adams has actively concealed the truth of his
involvement and worked to suppress and discredit those who have sought to bring
light to the subject. In one instance Adams famously, and falsely, denied his
involvement in McConville’s killing, telling members of the McConville family
“Thank God I was in prison when she disappeared.” In fact, Adams was free at
the time of the killing.

Similarly,
Adams has dismissed McIntyre as engaged in “shoddy” research, and famously
sought legal advice surrounding the allegedly libelous nature of similar claims
regarding the McConville case made by Ed Moloney in his 2002 book A Secret History of the IRA (although,
perhaps tellingly, Adams never seriously pursued the charges). In short, with
regard to both the McConville case in particular and his own involvement in the
IRA in general, Adams has actively sought to distort and conceal the truth.

Consequently,
the arrest of Gerry Adams is not simply about the past, about getting justice
for Jean McConville and her family. It is also not merely a matter of political
revenge, although the timing of the arrest undoubtedly gives it a strongly
political tinge.

The arrest of Gerry Adams is as much about the future of peace
and reconciliation in Ireland as it is about the individual sins of one man. It
is about a nation that is still healing, and a process of reconciliation that
requires all its leaders – Northern and Southern, Catholic and Protestant,
Nationalist and Unionist, British and Irish – to be truthful about their former
actions. It is time that Gerry Adams also plays his part in that process.